< p class=”first”>After some experiments with raw digital images, I now decided to rectify the one notable omission in this summer’s Passau gallery. That’s the famous Stephansdom, or St. Stephen’s cathedral. It had been undergoing renovation which is now finished. I also switched to Adobe Lightroom for post-processing, as described in the next section. Scroll … Continue reading “Stephansdom & Lightroom”
Tag: History
Historical topics
Luttwak’s Grand Strategy of Rome
Edward N. Luttwak’s The Grand Strategy of the Roman Empire (Johns Hopkins University Press 1976) is a compact (255 pages) and brilliant classic on military and diplomatic strategies from the principate to the tetrarchy. Recently Luttwak published his long-awaited companion piece, The Grand Strategy of the Byzantine Empire (Harvard University Press 2009), much delayed and … Continue reading “Luttwak’s Grand Strategy of Rome”
Passau Pictures & Photoscape
Brace yourselves, it’s time to inflict my amateur photos on the Internet! At least there aren’t any cat pictures. A five-hour trek through Passau in Bavaria/Germany, at the conflux of Danube, Inn & Ilz, yielded about 160 exposures of which I kept eleven. Notably absent is St. Stephen’s cathedral which is currently being renovated, and … Continue reading “Passau Pictures & Photoscape”
John Glassie on Athanasius Kircher
John Glassie’s A Man of Misconceptions (Riverhead Books 2012) is an immensely entertaining account of the life and times of Athanasius Kircher (1601/2–1680), a Jesuit scholar who escaped the Thirty Years War ravaging his native Germany to become famous throughout Europe for his prolific writing, museum of curiosities, and peculiar scientific theories. Kircher lived at … Continue reading “John Glassie on Athanasius Kircher”
Sociological Eye on Revolutions
Successful revolutions provide the founding myths for the newly established order, and are accordingly glorified as the spontaneous uprising of the righteous and downtrodden against their oppressors and exploiters. Randall Collins, professor of sociology at the University of Pennsylvania, has turned his Sociological Eye on the realities behind the myths. The articles quoted below are … Continue reading “Sociological Eye on Revolutions”